Latinos in California Face Significant disparities in income, home ownership and education Compared to their counterparts in other states with important Latin populations such as Texas and Florida.
The housing crisis of our State is a large part of the explanation, and a cause of the crisis is the perversion of a well -intentioned law of 1970, the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. It has become the most powerful legal tactics to stifle the development of housing, contributing to high costs and limited affordability. Even when a proposed development can overcome legal obstacles, houses ultimately approved are unaffordable for families of workers, because a complex network of regulatory terms and environmental costs adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each new house or apartment.
It is an obstacle to ascending mobility for all Californians, in particular young people – which means that in this state, in particular Latinos, which represent 40% of the population and make up more than half of residents under the age of 18. The CEQA must be reformed to restore the American dream at hand for young Californians.
The value of the property is deep, offering both accommodation and long -term stability to be part of a neighborhood and a school community, not to mention generational wealth and a nest egg. However, California is a difficult place to realize this dream. In 2022, only 46% of Latin households owned their homes, compared to 51% nationally. The rates were 59% in Texas, 55% in Florida and more than 70% in New Mexico.
With The median prices of houses in California amount to $ 900,000 in AprilThe choices of housing policy in California have made the home ownership of a distant dream for most younger residents and for most Latin American families who work hard, many of whom do not inherit the wealth of fairness at home of their parents and who are not on the path of the transmission of the house appreciated by their children.
The CEQA, intended for a progressive environmental policy, now clearly undermines the economic potential of the Latin American population of California. This process began in the 1970s, when a largely white environmentalist movement of the upper class became a dominant political force. The CEQA was promulgated to minimize the environmental damage to public works projects of such infrastructure, but a court decision of 1972 has extended it to cover the house building. After thousands of subsequent CEQA legal proceedings, it now applies to the renovation of the house.
This law has moved away from its planned objective and must be rekindled. Practically anyone – even those who have no direct interest in the project or the environment – can continue to block housing for any reason. Cases can be anonymously deposited. Sometimes A real estate company even continued to block the project of another For competitive reasons.
The Little Hoover Commission of the State Government urged the legislator to exempt all filling The CEQA accommodation, which would allow more houses to be built on underused land in areas that already have many houses. The Commission also called on anonymous CEQA proceedings at the end of the prohibition of prosecution filed for non -environmental reasons and clarification and shipping of the CEQA process.
Although California’s legislature has promulgated nearly 200 laws since 2017, the intention of stimulating housing supplies and reducing bureaucratic costs, legislators have not rekindled in CEQA abuses. They have also never authorized most of the CEQA's judicial mission. In its current interpretation, the law has become biased against changes in private views, against temporary construction noise during day and against common urban species such as seagulls and traffic jams. Housing policies designed to overcome these CEQA obstacles, such as Priorifying high density filling accommodation near the transit, are economically impracticable In almost all California during More affordable houses, in areas where Latin American property really increases, continue to be struck by anti-development defenders.
The state of mind upside down of current environmental policy ends up being anti-peoples And Anti-environment. The California Air Resources Board, whose policies are applied via the CEQA, count jobs and people who come out of a city or county such as “greenhouse gas emissions” – even when these jobs and people move in states and even countries with many more lax environmental standards. The lost jobs and population of California increase Global greenhouse gas emissions. So much for the “leadership” of California climate change.
Agencies and defenders promoting this “growth” program through the CEQA share the “growth” dogma of environmentalists from the 1970s, which means and now really “without growth of” these people “.” The intention is racist, and the effect is racist. The housing crisis strikes the harder black Californians and Latinos, as Even carbohydrates and the Non -partisan legislative analyst office Now recognize expressly.
California cannot approach its housing and homeless crisis without building millions of new houses which are in fact affordable for the families of workers from California-and do much faster, without counter-productive legal obstacles which add delays and costs.
The CEQA reform is the key to this. A good start would be an immediate moratorium on CEQA proceedings based on any theory not expressly authorized by status or regulation. The governor must simply direct the agencies and exhort the courts, to respect the law and to reject these complaints.
Today's much more diversified legislature should be able to do more, serving all Californians better than the sea of leaders and white judges who have been captured for a long time by Nimby environmentalists.
It is time that we admit the failures of the CEQA expansion and start to bring the political changes necessary to restore the American dream of ownership for a younger and more diverse California.
Soledad Ursúa is a member of the board of directors elected from Venice Neighbourhood Council. Jennifer Hernandez is a partner of the Holland & Knight law firm. Ursúa is the main author of, and Hernandez is a contributor, the recent report “The future is Latino. “”
